Summer Veggies

Wow! I've hit the jackpot this year with my vegetable garden so far with new raised individual plots for my 'vine' plants aka squash, cucumbers, watermelon. As such I've already been using and giving away fat cucumbers, summer and zucchini squashes and hope to have watermelon as well.

Here's one recipe and some ideas for using this type of bounty.

Zucchini boats

One summer during my graudate years I worked as a vegetarian cook at a summer music camp. The recipe below was fairly typical of things I created for the vegetarian campers. Use your imagination for variations.

Makes 4 servings

One medium-large zucchini fresh off the vine
olive oil/butter for sauteing
fresh basil (I used purple ruffled)
fresh chives
two medium small potatoes
milk or cream
freshly grated hard cheese (parmesan, romano, pecorino, etc.)

Note: you can cut the squash several ways: two large boats (halve the zucchini length-wise and divide into portions later), or form four medium boats (length-wise, then halved), etc.

Halve the zucchini length-wise and then scoop out the insides until you have about 1/2 inch (give or take) thickness for all the walls. [Save the insides, but if there are large seeds, you can discard that portion. You will use about half of what you scooped out.]

Optional -- you can par-boil (in boiling water for 4-5 minutes) the zucchini halves (which is what I did) or bake until tender. Advantage of parboiling until almost soft is that the zuchinni boats stay more moist and they don't need to bake very long later. Solely baking them takes considerably longer -- 30+ minutes and tends to dry them out a bit. Another advantage is that you can cook the potatoes at the same time. [If you decide to bake, brush halves with olive oil before adding filling.]

Stuffing: Peel pototes and quarter. While parboiling the squash halves and potatoes start the filling.

Filling: Place olive oil in skillet and fry over medium heat the chives and about half the saved insides of the zuchinni (medium-fine chop) until cooked through -- few minutes. Add chopped basil during last minute to wilt.

When potatoes are soft for mashing remove from pot. Note: my zucchini halves were done about the same time -- remove these and place on rack or in strainer to drain. Mash potatoes in medium bowl, add milk to moisten, add fried veggies and cheese, season with salt/freshly ground pepper. Mix well with fork.

Fill zucchini halves with mixture (should be enough to form rounded mounds in boat halves/quarters. Place on oiled baking dish and place in oven near top (so it browns a bit) for ten minutes or so. Sprinkle with more cheese or butter at end. Serve hot.

Variations: you can add additional veggies to the mixture -- swisschard or spinnach make nice colorful and healthy additions (chop and then wilt with the basil); add other herbs/spices; try other cheeses, and so on. Note: for the health conscious -- a little hard cheese has not so much fat as soft cheese and goes a long way flavor-wise. Try blue cheese or stilton for a kick.

Next time: summer (yellow) squash and zucchini fritter patties.

For all you cucumber lovers -- fresh garden cucumbers are a good foundation for starting a flavorful Greek salad.

Enjoy

Joe Koob

P.S. Now that I know how to add images, maybe I'll take some pics of food!